-DATE-
19720103
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
31 DEC ANAP CONGRESS
-PLACE-
HAVANA
-SOURCE-
HAVANA GRANMA
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19720128
-TEXT-
FIDEL CASTRO 31 DEC SPEECH AT ANAP CONGRESS
Havana GRANMA in Spanish 3 Jan 72 pp 2-4 X
[Stenographic transcript of Prime Minister Fidel Castro's speech at the end
of the Fourth National Association of Small Farmers [ANAP] Congress in
Havana on 31 December]

[Text] Comrades of the Party and Government leadership, comrade
representatives of our peasants: I am very sorry I was unable to attend the
sessions of this peasant congress. Undoubtedly I would have been better
prepared to make what we could call a wrap-up of this congress. Actually,
despite the fact that most of the time we try to be at the assemblies and
congress, it has been absolutely impossible to do this these days. However,
we followed all the preparations with much interest, and in addition we
have received extensive information on the manner in which the congress
took place. We have also received the reports. We have partially learned of
some of the brilliant speeches through recordings provided us by Comrades
Curbelo and Pepe Ramirez.

The impression we all have is that this congress has been a success. In
addition, our impression is that the congress points out the level of
political and revolutionary awareness attained by our peasants. Certainly
we believe that this congress will be historic. All of us have witnessed
tonight's presentation, the theatrical presentation, conceived in the
Escambray in the midst of the contradictions that naturally appear in those
problems in which opinions, the thinking, traditions, conflicts among the
past, the present and the future are expressed. The presentation is
powerful because it points out problems with great frankness. As any work,
of course, it tends to emphasize those factors that symbolize the essence
of those conflicts.

Naturally, there in the Escambray itself, where those problems are
discussed extensively among thousands and thousands of peasants and scores
of analytical assemblies have been held, there they see it as something of
daily occurrence, something that is confronted daily. When we see it, we
are suddenly confronted with the impact of those realities.

And we believe it is worthwhile to expand on the problem. It is not exactly
a problem of today. The fundamental problems of today are not exactly plans
or integration. The fundamental problems of today are related to the
question of what we are going to do in agriculture in general and in
peasant areas to accomplish the tasks we have to do at this time; how are
we going to take advantage of the land's resources, the material resources,
technical and human resources to make our agriculture advance and increase
production; what are the essential problems we must attack; what are the
vices that remain and that are the weaknesses we must overcome. But at any
rate, already at this congress questions of great importance are being
discussed, questions that have to do with tomorrow, that have to do more or
less with the immediate future, more or less with the distant future.

And this has to do with an important question. It has a great importance.
Why? Because in our opinion it allows us to catch a glimmer of a path. It
allows us to catch a glimpse of ways of agricultural work and production;
new ways, revolutionary ways that will point out to what extent this
revolution has been profound and to what extent our people are really
making a determined contribution to the solution of very difficult and very
complex problems of the modern world.

With the victory of our revolution it could be said that the question
regarding the solution of agrarian problems had reached a certain level of
development. And we recall how for the revolutionary movement in general in
practically all the countries that were in the position of Cuba, the
principal watchword, the most advanced objective proposed with respect to
agrarian reforms was the distribution of land under the slogan of "The land
must be for those who work it." This was a slogan that was undoubtedly
revolutionary in its time because it was the expression of an aspiration of
the exploited against the exploiters, the latifundists, the great
landowners, and even the great capitalist agricultural companies. The
social problems that affected our rural areas resulted in that slogan, that
aspiration. Many peasants lacked land and many others paid high rents or a
third or in some cases half the crop or they were squatters and constantly
threatened with eviction.

After the victory of the Cuban revolution, for the first time--and of
course taking the specific conditions of Cuba very much into
consideration--the question arose of whether it was proper to proceed to
the distribution of lands that were not in the possession of squatters,
tenants, or sharecroppers whether we should proceed immediately to a
complete distribution of the land or, on the contrary, we should not do
this.

As the revolution has progressed, it is easier to understand the problems.
When years pass, certain ideas, certain concepts may become prominent
because of their importance, because of their basic importance in the
subsequent development of the country. During the early days, however, when
we emerged from the darkness, from ignorance, oppression and exploitation,
perhaps they did not appear so clearly.

But it is obvious that if in our country we had been satisfied with
applying the concepts that up to that time were the most advanced on
agrarian questions, we would have mortgaged the future of the nation and
filled the country with small holdings and minifundia. We would have
divided the land of the latifundia but we would not have resolved the
problem of the rural area. There would have been many peasants and
farmworkers without land, that is, if we were going to divide it into plots
at least big enough for one ox to work. To use an ox effectively--I say
effectively-- at least a few hectares or a caballeria are necessary.

Naturally all our field would have been covered with huts. Cuba would have
been a collection of huts from one end to the other. (applause)

Hundreds of thousands of persons who at that time would not have received
land would have lived in the midst of that poverty, and they would have
been forced to sell their work as their only form of livelihood. And,
moreover, who was going to say in those days when a half million people
were unemployed that today's problem would be precisely the opposite, a
shortage of workers, the immense needs for a labor force, which would force
us to employ machines and technology on a massive scale.

When labor is scarce in the rural areas only machines can resolve the
problem, only the great combines, the great airplanes spreading herbicides,
or planting or spraying, struggling against weed, germs, disease. Only the
great irrigation systems, only the most modern milking equipment, only the
great high-speed and productive machinery can resolve the problem.

And two things would have happened: [only one point is mentioned below]
either underemployment of hundreds of thousands of people in a subsistence
agriculture that would not have been enough even to supply cane for the
sugar centrals, or provide milk for the population and food in general;
where it would have been impossible to introduce any advanced technology.
[paragraph continues]

The industrial workers of the cities would have found themselves deprived
of food, and we would then have been presented with the serious problem of
how, after making this extraordinary distribution of land, to begin to
bring order back to all that, that is, if we had the chance to bring back
order.

Even now the path to bringing order to our rural areas, to introducing and
applying technology and resolving the great problems we have before us is
long and arduous.

Moreover, in our country there was the special circumstance that because of
our historical heritage our economy did not depend on great industries or
great mineral resources. It depended, and would have to depend for many
years, on its agricultural production. Any serious problem in agricultural
production would have a prejudicial effect on the entire life of the
country because our exports, and therefore our imports in this
country--where practically everything had to be imported--depended
precisely on agricultural products.

And this was a very serious obstacle because when a country depends on
agriculture and has to depend on it for many years as its main source of
income... and agriculture is not a mine which is kept busy all year, all
hours of the day and the night if you wish, as is the case with Moa and
Nicaro, where even during periods of heavy rains, under the open sky, it is
still perfectly possible to stockpile the necessary materials at the
entrance to the plants, so that they do not have to stop for a single day.
The countries that live from oil production, the countries that live from
great industrial development in general terms have a solid and stable
production every year.

However, when a country has to depend basically on agriculture, when that
agriculture depends on climatic factors, when that climate is a climate as
irregular as the climate of our country and when in addition the technical
development of that agriculture is such that only a very small part depends
on irrigation and had irrigation, and we were also exposed to great
droughts and great and sudden rainfall--as well as with hurricanes with
which we have had the chance to become acquainted during this process,
ranging from the catastrophic and destructive Flora to this latest one,
which endangered a gigantic effort to harvest the tobacco crop, a sudden
hurricane through Pinar del Rio no less, and here, of course no matter
where a hurricane passes it causes damage, and it passed through Pinar del
Rio when the land was ready and the seedbeds ready, so that the people of
Pinar del Rio had to accomplish a miracle of recovery and effort,
rebuilding all the seedbeds to that they could fulfill the plans. [sentence
as published]

We have lived, we have just finished living, through 2 years of extreme
drought, a period in which many places registered only 50 percent of the
average rainfall. This very year that is about to end, we had bad luck in
the tobacco regions of Pinar del Rio, where we only had one-fifth of the
average rainfall during the critical period for this crop.

And if you plan to produce tobacco with 200 millimeters of rain or 150
millimeters, or 100 millimeters, and only 40 millimeters or 30, or 20 fall,
it is very difficult to supply the very many smokers of this country, to
insure supplies for them.

With regard to rice production, if we are to offer sufficient quantities of
this product to a population of 8.5 million people, the amount of land to
be bulldozed, the number of airplane landing fields, roads, drainage and
irrigation ditches, pumps wells, and dams required are simply fabulous.

And in dry years such as this, not even the Juventud dam had any water.
Neither did the Ramirez nor the Lebrije. The Lebrije, which was almost
destroyed by rain when it was built because it was filled up in June and a
great effort had to be made to prevent its destruction, had no water. The
Jimaguayu had no water, and the El Mate had no water. And in the middle of
spring there were the ricefields waiting for water. This pointed out the
need to continue to build dams because if the Lebrije with its
90-million-cubic-meter capacity was not enough, let us see if the Zaza dam
with its 1-billion-cubic-meter capacity is. [applause] That dam will be
finished on 30 April this year but to finish it will require extraordinary
work which results from its construction: the building of some 1,000 homes
now located in the reservoir area of the dam and the moving of one of the
greatest diary industries of the country--the Rio Zaza plant, which the
river will evict from there--away from the Zaza dam. Pedrogales, that of
Rio Buey, and to rapidly continue with the construction of dams in other
places, in Las Villas, Camaguey, Pinar del Rio, Havana, Isle of
Pines--Mantanzas has the good fortune of having much subterranean water--in
order to resolve these problems.

And just imagine the situation of our country not having a dam for
irrigation. Upon the victory of the revolution there was Charco Mono to
supply Santiago with water--6 million cubic meters. The Hanabanilla dam was
under construction, not for irrigation but for hydroelectric purposes.

At this moment there are 14 large brigades building dams such as the Zaza.
They have over 100 trucks of more than 10 tons each. They have scores of
bulldozers, cranes, loaders, trailers and graders and motorgraders. All in
all these are gigantic construction projects for building dams. After the
dams there are the canals such as the one at Zaza which has to carry water
60 kilometers and for which it will be necessary to dig in clay and rock,
colossal movements of earth to guarantee the people a supply of rice.

When a country such as ours had to depend on agriculture, it was exposed to
those problems we have been afflicted with for years--the periods of
excessive rain which were harmful because there was no drainage system and
the periods of great droughts which harmed us because of a lack of water
and an irrigation system.

To have an idea of what this can mean for the economy of a country, it is
enough to say that sugar production in years such as that which has just
ended may be 40 percent less than that produced in years of normal
rainfall. This means that if you had enough cane for 10 million tons [of
sugar] in a year of normal rainfall, this could be reduced to 6 million
tons in an excessively dry year. Just think what a 40-percent loss of basic
export production means for the economy of a country, what a 40-percent
loss of agricultural production means when a country depends primarily on
agriculture.

If we add to this the circumstance that to produce our foreign credits we
have had to use approximately half a million men per year in the sugar
harvest for that cane and for that industry--workers in the sugar centrals,
transportation, cutting and hauling cane, not counting those who are
preparing the canefields for next year--and that this weighs tremendously
on the country, we can see that there is no other solution than sugarcane
combines. Until the combines arrives we will use the Australian method of
cutting cane. The Australian method requires burning, but the combines also
require burning--up to now in the technical level of existing combines--and
then there is a need for increasing irrigation, use of herbicides, large
combines and airplanes, and the construction of large irrigation systems.
[paragraph continues]

And we ask ourselves if that would have been possible in a country divided
into a half million small farms, in each of which would be because of
tradition and need, sugarcane, rice, manioc, sweet potatoes, plantain,
livestock, fruit trees, and so forth--many of the types of individual
agriculture we see and we know of historically. This was conceivable in a
country where man did not depend on anything but himself and what he had at
hand. If he had nothing and nothing at hand then his wife, children, the
family, everybody would die of hunger, disease, from everything because he
had nothing but himself. The case of what we saw happening, and the dead
child...and dead children, we all knew about. And you know it better than
anyone because the large majority of you must have known of those epidemics
of gastroenteritis, typhus and similar things which exterminated scores of
children in all neighborhoods. Moreover, children were barefooted,
undernourished, hungry and without any hope of medical care. We experienced
those problems. All of us saw them. I saw it myself. I arrived on a
vacation and found that 20 or 30 percent of the children had died. Of
course this was in areas where a doctor was not even heard of. The old
ones, and even those who are not old, even the young, knew of those things
since the revolution is only 13 years old.

And man depended only on what he had at hand. Nobody thought of him and he
was not going to think of anybody else. It is not like today when all are
ready to die, all are ready to fight and die for any child of this country;
a fisherman, a peasant, a worker, a mutilated child [applause]. Today the
distance separating us from the past is immense.

That is why the ideas have to change; that is why concepts must be
revolutionized. When one lives in a world inspired by other ideas, by other
principles, by other concepts, by imperatives of moral order, but also by
imperatives of vital order, by imperatives of historical order, by
imperatives of economic order, everything has to change and change for the
benefit of all. It will change for the good even of those who resist
understanding the new times in which we live, even of those who resist
opening their eyes to see the tomorrow which may await us if we work in a
rational manner, in an intelligent manner, in a responsible manner, in a
revolutionary manner!

Fortunately, our revolution already confronting its own problems sought new
solutions, took new steps on the path of agrarian reform. As a result, more
than an agrarian reform, an agrarian revolution took place.

And we did not take a step backward. Because to have converted our masses
of farm workers into independent private farmers would have been a march
backwards in the history of our country. To be a worker is the result of
the evolution of human society. To be a worker is the result of the
development of productive forces, of technology and modern industry. The
working class is the child of the progress of humanity. The isolated,
independent producer is a memory of the past of humanity. From a social
point of view, form a political point of view we would have regressed. And
perhaps very soon afterward we would have had the need to take new steps
forward.

But how long would the existence of two social classes, the working class
and the peasants, lasted in our country. The peasant class would have
increased in number and the working class would have decreased in number.
The new concept of the agrarian reform allowed us to maintain the workers
as workers and increase the force and influence of the working class.

And these are problems which effect us very closely, which affect you, and
particularly affects your children very closely. Any peasant knows this,
any member of the ANAP ranks knows it. And Pepe knows it, Pepe knows it
only too well. We know how much land Pepe had as a small farmer--that is if
he had any--but we do know that Pepe had at least 10 children [applause]

From what, from the land where Pepe lived with his 10 children, were the
children of Pepe and their families going to live. Dividing this small farm
into 10 parts: 10 milk cows, 10 plots of manioc, plantain, sugarcane, and
possibly not 10 milk cows but 10 milk goats. Here 10 had lived before there
would be 100 but without any technology, machines, irrigation or science.
And the great grandchildren of Pepe, according to figures, would have
numbered approximately 1,000 [laughter]. In three generations, which come
quickly, 1,000 people would have had to live in Pepe's farm.

Those are the prospects that could have been offered to us. Fortunately,
new concepts came into being, concepts adapted to our realities. Only
ownership of lands already in the hands of small renters, sharecroppers and
squatters was given out. The rest of the land coming under the agrarian
reform was neither parceled nor distributed to anyone. It was left as a
patrimony of all the people. What was done does not mean that it in itself
resolved all the agricultural problems. No, we are very far from having
resolved the problems, we are very far from having reached high levels of
productivity, of utilization of material resources, of machinery, money,
men-along way to go yet. We are very far from having reached a high degree
of efficiency in the exploitation and utilization of those resources and
those lands.

But there is no single social factor, there is no physical factor, there is
nothing that prevents us from making the effort we are making today, the
struggle for achieving the maximum of those possibilities we have before us
to accomplish the extension of irrigation to the immense majority of our
lands and our most important crops; to develop drainage systems, prepare
land for mechanization, remove tree trunks and rocks, make roads, join
irrigation ditches with irrigation canals, with drainage ditches and with
the roads and bridges over which the wagons must go, along the fields where
machines have to work in order to achieve the highest sugarcane
productivity. And so in our hands are these gigantic possibilities which
are beginning to be realities, these gigantic rice fields such as that of
Sancti Spiritus or Bayamo in Oriente where machines of high productivity
allow the harvesting of 300, 400, or 500 quintals in one day, while a man
working hard in his small plot harvests three and if he is very fast four
and may be five. In addition, the women will later have to hull it in the
mortar at home and the comrades of the FMC-ANAP brigades also know that
perfectly well.

Planting is already being done with airplanes in these great rice fields.
Spraying is done with airplanes, herbicide is applied with airplanes,
airplanes which may have a productivity of 50 caballerias per day, machines
which can cultivate and harvest 300 to 500 quintals, modern dryers and
modern mills. How many million and millions of man-hours these machines
save? And what security. It no longer is subject to the great droughts when
all the water that is needed is available for one and two harvests, for the
spring plants and the winter plantings!

Investing those gigantic sums necessary for extracting the maximum from the
soil, for applying technology, is the only way in which the 1,000
grandchildren of Pepe will be able to live, they and the millions of
grandchildren of all of you who are not very far behind Pepe. [laughter]

That is what it is all about, how we view and contemplate the future, what
will be the future of your children, your grandchildren, and your great
grandchildren; whether we are going to continue to destroy natural
resources; whether we are going to continue to destroy the soil through
erosion because of a lack of conservation measures; whether we are going to
continue to destroy mountains thus depriving future generations of the
natural resources from which they have to live.

We said in a meeting with Chilean students that no matter how well we did
things at the present time, we would, in 500 years, be considered something
like prehistoric animals. That is if we do our utmost. What will future
generations say if we do our worst, if we destroy for them even the
resources from which they must live? And what would future generations,
your descendents say, or what would they have said if this phenomenon of
the small plots and small farms had been prolonged; or at any rate, if with
the coming of years we still continued to consider this country as a
country divided into two classes; the workers and the peasants? What if
pictures, these dramas which we saw in the theatrical presentation, these
arguments between the farmer and the peasant which we saw in the theatrical
presentation tonight were continued for decades: The ideological argument
between workers and peasants was hardly touched there. We have heard
recordings of arguments between state farmers and peasants in the Escambray
and the arguments used and the things said are incredible. Truly, the state
farmers defended themselves much more vigorously, and truly the farmers
made some very serious imputations in their arguments against the peasants.
They all spoke with enormous freedom and frankness. Do not believe that the
peasants came out badly in the theatrical presentation despite the fact
that it was crude. Sometimes in order to say something so that the message
hits home it has to be done in a crude manner. But in the polemic between
state farm workers and the peasants we have heard many things. And with
what sense and what awareness does the worker say that he works for all the
people; that what he plants is going to the collection centers; that with
his work what he produces goes there where the teacher is, the doctor, or
the industrial worker, it goes where those who produce medicines and other
things are and they have the right to wear clothes and shoes and to eat
because they are the ones who are responsible for health and life, they are
the ones who produce material goods, produce the services needed by all the
people, which all the peasants need. Which are the medicines with which a
peasant cures himself, alleviates his pain or saves the life of his child
or his wife? Which are the books, pencils, schoolbuildings, and
laboratories with which his children are educated and where his children to
to primary school, high school, preuniversities, technical schools,
universities? [applause]

And those who produce those goods for all the workers who produce those
shoes, clothing, medicines, transportation, housing, and all those
indispensable things for living today, do not keep anything, do not trade
with anyone. They work and produce for all society. [applause]

That is why the worker reaches a moral awareness which is much higher, a
political and revolutionary awareness which is much higher, and that is why
it is said that they are the most revolutionary class of society.

Well and good. No one is to blame for having been born a worker or for
having born a peasant. No one has the historic responsibility for his own
social status. in any case, we shall have the responsibility for our social
condition of tomorrow. And above all we shall have it to the degree that it
is within our power to change the social conditions of the future, in the
degree in which we live a revolutionary process, in the degree in which we
have the privilege of making a new world.

We are not responsible for the world of yesterday. We are not responsible
for the old world. However, we are responsible for the world of tomorrow.
We are responsible for the future! We Cubans are responsible in this moment
of our history, in this revolution! I say this because in pointing out
realities we are not placing responsibilities. [paragraph continues]

We are pointing out the primary responsibility of the future. This explains
the way of carrying out a revolution, explains the concept of
worker-peasant alliance, [applause] the content of this alliance, the
objective of this alliance. But in these moments 1971 is ending and 1972
begins. A new revolutionary year! Another year of life for the revolution
ends! [applause]

Let us stop to listen to our anthems; the national anthem, the Latin
American anthem, and the Communist Internationale! [The three are played at
2400 31 December]

On a day like today, in an hour like this one, when the revolutionary
fighters were preparing to wage the last battles, when the men were
preparing to offer their final tributes of lives and blood, at the end of
the battle the tyrant and his thugs left the country. It is indeed
symbolic--and no one planned it, no one proposed it, but it is a result of
our revolutionary life--that this 13th anniversary finds us here with the
peasants at their congress, thinking of the new tasks, thinking of the new
obligations, the new duties. It is a good proof that there are changes in
our life; that there are great changes in our lives; that there are great
changes in everything. Possibly if we did not live in a revolution, if we
did not have so many obligations before us, today we would not be here
together. Some would be celebrating the holiday and the great majority
would be without anything to celebrate!

Let us really commemorate this 13th anniversary by working, forging the
world of tomorrow together with the workers, the peasants, and the people.

We spoke of the worker-peasant alliance. What is the worker-peasant
alliance? This has been explained in many ways but in essence it is the
revolutionary alliance of two exploited classes in the era of socialist
revolution because those two classes existed in the capitalist society.

In the bourgeois revolutions no one sought the worker-peasant alliance. The
bourgeoisie, in the era of their revolutions also in turn changed the
structure of society, developed their philosophy and their institutions and
they were not long in discovering, as capitalism developed and a new class
emerged, the working class, the possibilities of using the peasants against
the workers. Historically, whenever they could, the bourgeoisie used the
peasants against the workers. It happened that way in the classic country
for bourgeois revolutions, France, where they affected an agrarian reform
and took away the land from the feudal lords who had owned it since
medieval times. With that historic merit, invoking those events after
having created millions of rural landowners, they used them against the
workers in elections and in revolutionary crises, in the following phases
of that social process. And more than once they used the peasants to crush
the workers, they used the peasants to defend the interests of the great
industrialists, the great bankers, the great traders who also exploited the
peasants although they did not exploit them in direct manner like the old
feudal lords.

But when the Bolshevik revolution appeared, Lenin for the first time
expounded the watchword a union of workers and peasants. It was no longer
the era of bourgeois revolutions; it was the era of socialist revolutions.
It was no longer the liberal-bourgeois thinking of the industrialists, the
bankers, the traders, which influenced the process. It was the philosophy
of the proletariat, the ideology of the proletariat, the program of the
proletariat which mattered. It was the proletariat who for the first time
achieved the union of those two classes to liquidate the land-owners, the
financial oligarchy, the great industrial and trade interests.

The exploited once more joined against the exploiters. While under
feudalism the working class did not exist and the feudal lords, having
society under their rule, exploited the industrialists, traders, artisans,
and peasants, now under capitalism the bourgeoisie which became the ruling
class, exploited the workers and peasants. That is why the worker-peasant
alliance is the alliance of two revolutionary classes against the
exploiters. And those two classes united to carry the revolution forward.
This time it was a socialist revolution. The socialist revolution tends to
eradicate social classes. In the first place, it suppresses that horrible
division in human society between exploiters and the exploited. It
expropriated and confiscated the property of the great owners, the great
exploiters, the ruling class. However, there survived then as the
revolution advanced, those two classes: the working class and the peasant
class. That is why those two allied classes have a very important historic
mission at the same time: not only that of eradicating the division of
society into exploiters and the exploited, but to eradicate even the last
vestige of the division of society into social classes.

And that is the honorable mission of the proletariat and the peasants of
our country, to make the revolutionary process advance until absolutely all
of us belong to a society without classes, a society of producers, a
society of workers with equal rights. That society is reached through
steps. The communist society is the final objectives. Socialism is a step
along the way. And it has been said that the socialist phase implies that
each man contributes according to his ability and receives according to his
work. In the final step, the communist phase, of a superior society, of a
really new man, each one must contribute according to his abilities and
receive according to his needs.

It is impossible that any clear-thinking man, any informed man can cease to
struggle for that phase of human development which is still relatively far
off. It is not only dependent on men, it depends on the development of his
awareness and the development of his productive powers and the development
of production technology in material goods.

Historically, the peasants love for the land has been spoken of. It is
true. However, historically the children of the peasant have also had a
love for the land, the place where they were born, the tree they saw grow,
the countryside...everything! However, life has forced them to migrate to
the suburbs of the great cities. And so the children of Pepe, regardless of
how much love they had to their plot of land, under capitalism they would
have had to carry out a cruel migration and not to a school, not to a high
school, not to a university. And the grandchildren and great grandchildren
of Pepe would have had to effect a cruel migration and say goodbye forever
to that little tree, the countryside, the rocks, that little piece of land,
that is, those who had the chance to survive. Many left that land and this
world prematurely because of starvation or disease. The revolution offers
other prospects and alternatives to man. It neglects nothing, it loses
nothing, but it becomes the definitive owner of everything.

It becomes a dream of a new world, an absolutely different world and a
thousand times more humane.

And the children of many peasants, the great majority, have abandoned that
little piece of land. Today they are studying in a high school, a
pre-university school, or in a university and they are learning to be
engineers, pilots, teachers, or officers. They are acquiring a technical
training and they are thinking in a very different way.

If this is not so why do we lack so many workers in the rural areas? It is
because the children have chosen another road. Why cannot more tobacco
plants be planted? Why must there be so many mobilizations for harvesting
coffee? Because the children have abandoned that little plot of land.

And in our rural areas the small parcels are joined, they are not
abandoned. The little plot is enlarged by joining it with other plots and
other workers in living conditions which are infinitely different.

And we say that we admire the clarity of this congress. We admire its
proposal in this sense when without vacillations of any kind it declared in
this paragraph which summarizes the ideal: Participation of the Cuban
peasants in the economic and social development of the country must be
through the progressive incorporation of their lands and labor force into
the integral plans which make possible the massive use of technology and
mechanization of agriculture as the most ideal way of emerging from
underdevelopment." But to emerge from underdevelopment in all orders, not
only economic and technical but moral, revolutionary and human. [applause]
To emerge from the underdevelopment of awareness. That is so.

I asked Pepe: "Pepe are not all these peasant delegates communists? Are you
sure that those who are here in this congress are not all vanguard? Could
they not all be communists? And could they not all be very advanced with
respect to the rest of the mass?" And Pepe said: "No, those problems were
discussed in the base organizations. The delegates here bring the thinking
of the rank and file." How magnificent! How revolutionary! [applause]

Very well, this is not precisely our problem now. This is, in any case, an
enormous step in awareness, let us say, an acquiring of awareness by the
peasants. This which is brought up here is not our problem of today. It is
not even our most immediate problem. We have other questions and other
problems.

In addition, the worker-peasant alliance, that revolutionary alliance,
means the science of how to carry the process forward. That class alliance
to put an end to classes, that class alliance to liquidate the exploiters
first and to make all vestiges of class differences in human society
disappear later, has to follow the course of the process, has to act
according to scientific methods.

This means that for a subsequent advance of their own social system the
workers and peasants do not use force among themselves, do not use
coercion, do not use violence. The advance is now a moral one, one of
awareness; it is political. The workers and the peasants expropriate the
property of the exploiting classes; they deprive them of the machinery and
the instruments of power and, of course, of all their mass information
media. Who remembers of LA MARINA, PRENSA LIBRE, EL PAIS and all those
newspapers? All those publishing houses became the property of the workers
and the peasants; [applause] all the radio and television stations and all
mass communications media. And the industries, land, banks and big
businesses, all became the property of the people. The bourgeois
institutions were definitively eradicated. Today we have other types of
parliament. This in itself here is a parliament. [applause] Here the
peasants speak about which laws should be abolished, which laws should be
changed, and what must be done with Decree 1035 and the other, and with
those over here and those over there.

Simply, they propose this knowing that they have the right to propose it
and that the identification there is in the revolution between
revolutionary power and the people--the same thing. The conscious will of
the peasants in the questions which have to do with their most direct and
most fundamental interests is the will of the revolution.

The workers and peasants used force and violence and suppressed the
exploiters. When the exploiters rose against the revolution they all went
to fight to defend it. Pancho and the other one, and those who were
portrayed in the theatrical presentation at the beginning of this ceremony
all went to the mopping up operations in the Escambray. The workers and
peasants made up the militia battalions. [paragraph continues]

The workers and peasants also went to fight and die at Giron. And the
workers and the peasants have been present in every battle, in each fight,
in every moment of danger and struggle. They have been present, using force
to defend themselves from the imperialists, using force to defend
themselves from the exploiters each time that they rose up against the
revolution. Now when it is time for advance, when it is already a time for
subsequent steps, these cannot be steps taken under duress. There have to
be steps taken with morality and awareness. That is why when he say that it
will be an objective of that alliance to make disappear every vestige of
class, and make disappear every vestige of ownership of the means of
production. It is understood that it means advances in the field of policy,
primarily advances in the field of awareness. And it has to be in an
absolutely free manner; it has to be in an absolutely voluntary way. This
means that the class alliance will not use force or violence or coercion to
make the ownership of a small parcel of land disappear. "The property of
Pepe" cannot be made to disappear through coercion nor can it be made to
disappear before the moment when it must disappear. No one knows yet how
much longer "the property of Pepe" will last, that is if Pepe still has
some property, that is if Pepe had some property.

Pepe, what were you before the revolution?

[Pepe Ramirez answers that he was a squatter]

You were a squatter. You had a plot of land which after the Law of Agrarian
Reform became your property.

It has to be in an absolutely free manner, that is absolutely voluntary and
none of those properties must disappear before their time. That is very
important.

That is why we said that it is not a problem of today. And when they say a
progressive policy of integration to plans, unfortunately those plans will
still take many years. Therefore that can only take place in a progressive
manner and in an absolutely free and voluntary way. There are only some
exceptional cases in which the principle of voluntariness cannot be applied
and they were cited here in this Congress. For example, there is this
immense ricefield and there are three small plots in the middle, or 10
small plots in the middle with houses which affect 500 caballerias of land,
which do not allow an airplane to be used for spraying, or for spraying, or
for spreading herbicides, or apply technology. I mean, there are cases. And
this was taken into consideration even by the constitutions which provide
expropiations for reasons of public interest or social benefit. That is,
there are those cases which are in the established document.

There is the famous problem that a plot of land became part of the
reservoir of a dam. Then there were two opinions. What to do? With a
massive dam construction program, with 14 large brigades, with more than 20
dams under construction simultaneously--because some brigades build even
two or three--then what were we going to do there? Take the people out of
the reservoir area and give them land over there. When the first or second
dam was built that could be done. Not so now. To apply that solution we
would have to affect projects and state farms everywhere, creating the
small farms once more. We would be retrogressing. That is why the principle
was adopted that the policy could not be preached--because we would go
crazy--that everywhere that a new dam was built... and many of those dams
take up areas in valleys which sometimes are very divided into small plots
and one has to busy oneself establishing new plots and building isolated
schools without electricity, water or anything.

And this was done when El Mate was built. Those houses are still there. And
that is really very difficult to change. When you do something badly it is
more difficult to change it than to change something badly done in times
gone by. New things badly done are more difficult to change. Later it is no
longer a hut but a house made of materials and all that. But that house is
1/2 a kilometer from another and the children have to walk a long distance
to go to school and there is no electricity and water does not reach there,
nothing reaches there. The man continues in isolation like a lone wolf.

And then a policy was established. There is a dam. What are we going to do?
Gentlemen the dam is for all the people. When the Zaza dam is built it is
so that there will be food for all the people. It is for the interests of
all the nation. This means that the proposals approved in the Congress
establish guidelines to those exceptions to voluntary action with great
wisdom which shows a great advance in awareness. The peasant affected by
these projects in the interest of all the people does not receive
compensation in the form of new plots of land but he is compensated in
other ways considering his economic and social interests and needs.

The principal of voluntary actions, except in those cases established by
the Congress, has to be respected, let us say in an absolute manner. That
has always been said. [applause] And each time the principle of voluntary
actions is violated, there will be a fraud, there will be a great fraud,
there will be a violation of the political and revolutionary principles.

We will accomplish nothing in advancing if we do not advance in awareness.
We do nothing by advancing in that field if we remain culturally and
politically backward. In addition, we do nothing by uniting if we are not
in a condition to apply technology, if we are not in a condition to carry
out such integral plans. The integral plans will have to be implemented
little by little because the pace is imposed on us by our limited
resources.

Now, what is going to be produced at a given time? This is interesting. The
first integral plans were an idea which had to be converted into deeds.
Some of those plans are already being converted into deeds and have been
producing--as do all real deeds--a profound impression and a profound
influence in the zones where they are being carried out. But we are sure
that a moment will come when there will be many peasants who know that they
will have to wait at least 15 years or 10 years for something similar to be
done in their region: who will have the justified hope of achieving the
advances that other regions have made. And you will see, as all these ideas
advance, as the awareness of all these problems increases, you will see!
Remember that we have forecast this in this Congress. You will see that
there will be pressures from peasants who will say: "Why do we have to be
left behind for so long?"

Then this implies something which could be considered as a prerogative or a
right in the degree in which the country obtains more resources,
particularly material resources, construction materials such as stone, sand
and cement for building houses, to build schools, to build social clubs, to
create all the conditions which we try to create in those towns. And it is
true that the newly built towns lack some things but this is not an
accident. It was done deliberately. In the first towns the houses have been
built but the schools, stores, all the other social buildings will have to
be built by the inhabitants of that town. The other part has been left for
them to do just as the industrial workers today are building their homes,
primary schools, sewers and streets. They are already doing this, water
lines and sewers, all the social installations. In Alamar, which you
visited, they have built a furniture plant which is already one of the
largest in Havana. They have already established a provisional minimarket
and are already beginning to build the first primary schools of 12 and 14
classrooms with all installations. They are building a water treatment
plant and are building all the other installations there. The workers of
Havana are even working on four junior highschools--where their children
will attend.

It is proper that in the towns where there are no peasants--in a large
state-owned area-and there are not enough farm workers to even care for the
crops, professional construction workers be employed to build the town and
later those who live there can do the rest. This could also apply in new
peasant areas where a breeding project or a similar one has to be
developed, or a town in a rice-growing area where it is necessary to
resolve the problem quickly, or in a town where the people whose homes were
in a dam reservoir are going to live.

But the ideal thing is that the transformation of the rural areas, the
material and technical conditions in the rural areas, and the
transformations of his own life, be the work of the peasants--that which
was said by Pepe here--be the work of the peasants!

Naturally there are things which have to have priorities; the town in the
dam area, the people in the large rice project, the people in a project
which has to be advanced, a breeding plan; these must have priority. The
economy, circumstances will determine which things will have priority over
others. The limited resources we have today must be employed according to
priorities. But if within 2 or 3 years, if every year we have more
materials, then we can begin to think of the possibility that a peasant
community will decide to integrate by itself and do everything that you saw
in Picadura, Jibacoa, "the Show Window," Triumvirato and all those places
which are developing. Your work! The economy of the country could not do
that work. It lacks the labor force; it lacks resources.

And so far from there being any pressing need for making plans, such plans
cannot be made if the peasants do not participate actively. Neither can
they be made as long as we do not have the resources to offer the
peasants--and not to all of them at once.

If 100 peasant communities present the request for integration so that they
could have everything that any of those new communities are going to
have--and they are going to be a real marvel, a marvel--if they came with
100 requests, it would be necessary to make a selection which would take
into account--well--which community, what are its merits, how does it work,
what crops does it have, in short, we could not say yes to the 100.
Possibly if tomorrow 100 or 1,000 peasant communities, 1,000 rank and file
organizations, were to come and make that request, we could not provide
resources to more than 10.

This will allow you to understand perfectly well why this is not a problem
of today. Our problems of today are others: how to make the best of those
small plots of land, technical resources, machinery; how to best utilize
human resources, natural resources. This is our problem of today; how to
obtain the maximum of tobacco from the small plots of tobacco, the maximum
coffee from the small plots of coffee, the maximum of vegetables, root
crops, and fruit from the small plots of root crops, vegetables, and fruit;
[applause] how to obtain the maximum from each product; what things must be
done, what must be done with machinery--what you have proposed. And we
shall talk with Curbelo and Pepe who explained your worries. We gave them
our opinion: that wherever circumstances allowed, in the question of
machinery, it should be placed there in the peasant base organization,
where conditions permit, administered by the peasant base organization.
[applause] Indeed, there are not enough machines to go to the 6,000 peasant
base organizations and say: "Here is a tractor." It is not possible. And it
is not even possible to give everybody the same thing. If tobacco has
priority, tobacco must be cared for. If such and such a vegetable or root
crop area has priority, it must be cared for. But anywhere that
circumstances advise and resources allow it, we advocate that the machines
be assigned there and they be told: "Here is a machine. Take care of it.
There is such and such a state shop to repair it. You are responsible that
it not be racing around on the highways; [applause] that no one drives the
tractor to go visit his sweetheart [laughter], and that the tractor not be
used for everything. The tractor must be used for those activities for
which a tractor is designed. There is also the problem that today because
of a lack of trucks, a large number of tractors are used for transportation
of merchandise, materials, and so forth. The country is studying ways of
resolving the problem of the trucks because we do have a shortage, a crisis
in this type of transportation which in great part is being filled by
tractors. But this in turn has engendered disorder, too much disorder,
disorder against which a tenacious fight is going to be waged!

But we are sure that the peasant rank and file can care for this machinery
to the maximum degree providing conditions so advise. If five machines are
working there always, leave them there, look, administer them yourselves. A
number of tractors of those which arrive each year will be assigned and
sent to the peasant base organizations according to priority and in
addition, in accordance to considerations such as how the base organization
works. [applause] Among 10 base groups which need them, among 10 who have
the same needs, the same production...and if in addition there are enough
to give to two or three, they are given to one or two of the best. Look at
all the practical problems which have been brought up here; of materials,
supply, collection, and those which can be resolved, resolve them. These
are the problems of today. All those practical agreements which you have
adopted are the problems of today. Increase sugarcane production, among
others, because of the magnificent price of sugar at this moment, because
of the growing demand for sugar in the world, because of the future prices
of sugar in coming years. And now we have reasons. We made such a great
effort for the 10 million tons when sugar sold at 3.5 cents! Now it is, at
this time, it is selling for more than six and even more than seven cents
of a dollar per pound. Obviously it is a devalued dollar: seven is not the
equivalent of 6.5 before. A discount must be made. But the present prices
is more than 6.5.

And since we depend on sugar and since the climate ill-treats us and harms
us, let us take advantage of these circumstances while we develop other
branches of the economy; sugarcane and tobacco, not only because of exports
out because of the needs of domestic consumption, those crops for the
feeding of the people, and live-stock raising. In short, let us develop all
areas. Let us obtain the maximum from resources, from the small plots we
have in the peasant sector. And of course, improve organization and
utilization of resources in the state sector considerably. This is the
immediate task, this is the most urgent, most immediate practical thing.

But not because of this does the awareness of the future, the path to
follow, which has been decided by this Congress and for which reason we
consider this Congress historic, lack great importance. Now we have to
apply all the agreements with respect to immediate problems, put them into
practice. We must imbue the peasant organization with a maximum of drive,
provide it with the means required.

The proposal was made more than a year ago to install new life in the mass
organizations and here are the fruits, here we have the results in all the
worker masses, in all the tremendous drive that the revolution has been
acquiring in the past months, the tremendous force generated with
development and stimulation of the mass organizations. Here we have the
results. One more proof that we must have confidence in the awareness, the
spirit of our people, of our workers, of our peasants. These advances are
amazing, truly amazing. That is why we do not have the slightest doubt that
you are going to win the battle against the speculators, against those who
sell on the black market. [applause] And undoubtedly your opinion will be
taken into account on the abolishment of Law 1035 which was passed for two
reasons: to facilitate at a given moment--as the resolution reads--those
things pertaining to the peasants but also primarily to punish those who
devoted themselves to making trouble.

At that time there was not available what there is today: this
organization, this awareness of today. With this organization this can be
done and let the peasants--and this appears to be one of the fundamental
things of this Congress--be the ones who handle the problem.

That is why we believe that you peasants can resolve that problem perfectly
well. It is a moral problem, a political problem which affects you. And
simply, after exhausting all persuasive and political methods, those who
are repeaters and incorrigible can be deprived of their rights in the
peasant associations. As you yourselves have said, nothing more is
necessary. As soon as you deprive them of those rights, you have
practically deprived them of the rights of the class, the rights of the
peasant. They would no longer have the right to enjoy the benefits which
the revolutionary peasant, a member of the peasant class has.

It is inconceivable that a speculator, a usurer, a man without conscience
live from the work of others and give the products to another speculator,
an individual who no one knows how he gathered the money together--who
gathered it in other businesses or stealing, or gathered it by exploiting
in the past--but who gathers money here and there. There is too much money.
It is a phenomenon of the times. It will become less plentiful
progressively because we need to have it become less plentiful.

That is why we are so interested in a larger production of tobacco and all
that and particularly greater production of food and everything. It will
help us to resolve not only the problems of supply but also to resolve the
financial problems, to take the excess of money out of circulation because
by removing money we put an end to the instrument of the speculators, those
who buy and those who sell. We want to do it in this way and not another
because there are many workers who have money saved who earned it honestly
and it must be safeguarded. They have saved it for when they can spend it.
Then the individual who works the black market--and everybody knows him--he
must simply be warned and a political work of which we have spoken be
performed. And to a recalcitrant individual say: "All right you are
deprived of the rights of your peasant class." As of then treatment of him
will be that of a class enemy because he is truly an enemy of the alliance,
an enemy of the interests of the peasant class, the working class, and the
law and force can be applied on him with all vigor.

This is very clear. The revolutionary instructors and the peasant cadres
can explain that to all the peasants following those methods of discussion,
analysis, assemblies which you have used to organize this congress; taking
all these materials to the rank and file to discuss them there and sow
awareness. We must plant everything, we must plant awareness, much
awareness, and cultivate it well. Let us say it in agricultural terms: We
must plant and fertilize much awareness! [applause] That is reality; those
are the prospects.

Look at another question also. Our problem today is not one of land but
primarily one of a labor force. A labor force is what is lacking. True
there may be very specific tobacco lands and there can be the two problems
there: land and a labor force. There is not too much of that type of land
and it must be well utilized. There is no labor force. That problem must be
resolved, use technology, work hard. That is obvious.

Look at the nature of our problems.

What are we doing? Moving highschools to the rural areas, combining study
with work.

One has to see the areas cared for by the students in Ceiba one, in Jaguey,
and so forth. Wherever there is a school the crops are in optimum
condition. We have never seen those crops so well cared for as they are
now!

And we all know that the problem of raising citrus fruit in the country,
vegetables, tobacco, many of these crops which require a large labor force
can only be resolved by a combination of study and work, which happily is
the optimum way of educating the youth, the only real way of educating, the
only true communist form of educating. [applause] And you peasants know how
much the discipline of work educates, how much the rigor of work educates.
The new generations are very superior because almost from the time they
begin to acquire reason they begin to combine study with work.

In Meneses, the primary school which Camilo promised already has its area
of vegetables. In all the schools in the rural area, in all those towns
which are being built, the children in primary schools are going to have
their vegetable areas and beginning with the fourth grade they are going to
work two hours and are going to produce vegetables for their dining room
and for the town.

In the famous "showcase" referred to in the theatrical presentation, and
which for certain when one passes by there and sees that town one does not
know well where he is because those buildings are impressive, the sports
fields are already built. Now they will have to build the schools and other
things, but an area of two caballerias of agricultural land has already
been reserved for that school. And those towns are going to be a world of
cultural, sports, educational and all types of activities. And those
schools are truly going to be something never even dreamed of, all with
their sports installations. The children's health and their education is
going to be extraordinary. But the same system of combining study with work
is going to be followed in primary, secondary, preuniversity, and
university education.

There in Alamar you must have seen the Architecture and Engineering
students building structures. And they must already be in those zones of
great constructions learning in practice also, participating in production.
And so this system will be everywhere; all society will have to participate
in productive activities. And as the social institutions develop--the
clubs, the schools, the semiboarding schools--and the awareness of the
feminine sector develops, and organization develops, and the labor brigades
develop in the worker and peasant sectors, women will also be incorporated.
A poor country cannot allow the privilege that only a part of the
population works. Poverty and underdevelopment cannot be overcome.
Everybody has to work.

And you have also seen how in the stadiums and in those social projects the
retired have worked. They go there voluntarily, in Camaguey, in Las Villas,
in Havana, everywhere. Because a man cannot feel right... They can no
longer work eight hours but they can work two, three, or four. It may be
healthful. In the rural areas the retired peasants, I am sure, are also
going to lay a brick, a stone, work an hour, two hours, whatever they can,
every day. We have seen something very interesting in the Ceiba One junior
highschool: mothers fighting for education are also going to help. The
teachers and the entire school are very happy with that help. A community
is being created. Those schools also become vacation centers during the
summer for the family, the students.

The future offers us possibilities, infinite possibilities, when everything
belongs to everybody. We are advancing toward that goal. But we must march
slowly and we must march based on peasant-worker alliance. [applause]

That is very clear.

You have visited some of those towns, some of those schools. There are
nearly 10. At this moment work is progressing on 48 schools like the one at
Ceiba, work in various phases of physical construction, replanning,
projects. Between now and September 40 of them will be inaugurated.
Afterwards, in 1973, 60 will be inaugurated and we hope to reach a rate of
100 per year in 1974, and exceed that figure in 1975. [applause] And we
must struggle and struggle to reach 1,000 in 1980.

What does this mean? Optimum study conditions for all youth. Surely when
you saw those schools, those installations, the living conditions, the type
of education, the youths who are there developing and training all of you
must have had to feel true regret that you did not have the chance to have
those schools, true pride knowing that your children and your grandchildren
are going to study in them, true pride in knowing that the children of the
country, the humble children of the country will now have schools that the
children of the exploited of the past did not even dream of. That is the
reality. [applause]

You, the peasants, know very well how medical services are developing in
the country, living conditions, the highways that are being built
throughout the country from the valleys of Pinar del Rio, the most
forgotten valleys of Vinales, Laguna de Piedra, Infiero, Moncada, a highway
in Guanahacabibes which is going to Cabo de San Antonio. When did the
peasants of La Jaula and those places ever dream of such a road?

The Sierra Maestra is being crisscrossed with highways, the Second Front is
being crisscrossed with highways. Work is going on in the Escambray on
eight highways simultaneously. The country is being crisscrossed with roads
making easy the access of the people everywhere resolving the social,
medical, educational problems and the technical problems of production,
creating the possibilities of development at an ever-increasing rate.

Conditions are being created for construction of housing in the sugar
centrals in the industries. And we must, therefore, also think of assigning
part of the resources to social development of the peasant areas in the
degree that the peasants want them, a development preceded by those
agreements and those concepts agreed upon in this congress. Housing plants
are already being installed for the construction of housing in all sugar
centrals and sugarcane state farms. The peasants cannot, must not be left
behind. And to the degree that they want them, they will also have those
resources which are increasing in the country. In the same fashion all
those microbrigades, at any time, if they want to resolve the educational
problem, when we acquire 1,000 microbrigades,...if one year we say: "Give
priority to schools: and we build 1,000 schools such as that of
Meneses--schools for 500 thousand youths--we can do it in one year.

Thus ideas, concepts, and forces capable of making headlong advances are
developing. The construction brigades for those highschools you saw are
being organized. How many students shall we have in 1980 if we can reach
those objectives? The future plan was for some 700 schools. We are going to
struggle for 1,000. A half million youths, a half million youths would be
incorporated into productive tasks? And the value of the production of that
half million youths would be more than the value of a 10-million ton
production of sugar. [applause] What do you think of that?

Is that a path of progress or not? Is that a path to the future or not? At
the same time that we build the best school as far as materials are
concerned, we build one with the best education because of its quality and
general culture and also optimum social education, optimum revolutionary
education, optimum communist education. In addition it would be a broad
path of progress and future for the country.

These are the possibilities we have before us already, those which are
revolution has created, those which the people have created during these
years.

Our duty is to take advantage of experience, improve work, and continue
advancing at a faster rate because today we have the chance to advance at a
better rate. That is, in our opinion, the importance of this congress. We
were very much encouraged by the words of the Chilean peasants spoken here
today. They are beginning to face these arduous and difficult problems.
They are facing a serious resistance. What are the bourgeoisie, the
reactionaries and oligarchs doing today? As of now they are fighting these
ideas. As of now they are trying to use the peasants if possible against
the workers. And so a very important ideological struggle is being waged
there, a very important social struggle. Because they have very serious
problems and are studying how to resolve the problems of the rural areas.

They are drawing away from the policy of dividing the land. They are
promoting and developing policies of agrarian reform centers to resolve the
problems of all the peasants and all the farm workers. Naturally the
enemies of the working class are already raising the standards of
reactionary ideas and we read cables saying how they are trying to
encourage another sense of the agrarian reform and promote individualism,
promote the parceling of land. It is clearly seen. The solutions of the
reactionaries will not be good for the workers nor will they ever be good
for the peasants.

There are countries where other agrarian reforms were carried out. At a
certain time they were proclaimed as great advances. And they were. But
since they were not preceded by the concept of the worker-peasant alliance,
what good were they? And we have the case of Bolivia. They created an
infinity of small plots and then they played politics there too, because it
was the bourgeoisie who brought about the agrarian reform to create the
alliance of the bourgeoisie with the peasants so as to use the peasants
against the workers.

What a privilege it is for our country and our revolution to have been able
to take place at the right moment, to have been able to promote this
indestructible alliance of the workers and peasants and to march together
toward communism! [applause] Yes, previously they tried to scare the entire
world with that word; previously the reactionaries of DIARIO DE LA MARINA,
the monopolists, the imperialists, tried to scare the world with that word.
When we see it converted into deeds, into realities, human projects, living
conditions such as are being created in our country, in that enormous
economic and social material transformation, we see what the future means,
we see what revolutionary ideas mean; that they scare no one and vanquish
all and that they mean the most honorable banner for which to fight;
brotherhood, the closest solidarity, the closest union.

When was it ever seen that all would be willing to give their blood and
their life for a child of this country? When was so much generosity, so
much morality, so much dignity seen? When was so much decency seen? When
was so much spiritual brotherhood seen among men? That is what the
revolution has meant: the worker-peasant alliance. That is what the world
signifies, the world for which the united workers and peasants are
struggling.

And not only the workers and peasants of our country are united. The
workers and peasants of the other Latin American countries are united. The
workers and peasants of the world are also united! [applause] Over there in
Vietnam the workers and peasants are fighting against the imperialists. And
what a beautiful development of the awareness of our peasants who have more
than 1,500 committees of solidarity with the people of Vietnam, Cambodia,
and Laos! [applause] What an extraordinary fact that our peasants, who at
the same time they struggle for transforming our country, at the same time
that they struggle to change the conditions in our rural areas, and
struggle to change themselves, are acquiring the ideas and waving the most
beautiful revolutionary banners, the banners of socialism, the banners of
internationalism!

In the degree that this sector is transformed to reach the construction of
a society without classes together with the workers, the ideas of the
workers and the peasants, the principles, the morality of the workers and
the peasants are also evolving and will become a single principle, a single
morality, a single banner. That is why, comrade peasants, we congratulate
you. And we feel proud of this XIII anniversary; we feel proud of this work
of the revolution! [applause] Long live the socialist revolution!
[exclamations of "Viva"] Long live communism! [exclamations of "viva!]
Fatherland or death. We shall win! [ovation]
-END-